Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Today, I'm excited to finally share the cover for THE BOOK OF
KINDLY DEATHS by another of my wonderful authors, Eldritch Black. The elevator pitch for
this novel was Coraline meets Tales of Beedle the Bard, which hooked
me right away. But it got better: This book totally returned on its pitch
promise many-fold times! Not only is it a compelling story with a great lead
character, but the prose is both poetic and accessible to all ages. You're in
for a treat with this book.

In dressing such an amazing read, the awesome Lisa
Amowitz outdid herself on this one!

WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF THE MONSTERS IN A BOOK BECAME
REAL?

When twelve-year old Eliza Winter finds a secret room in her
missing grandfather’s sprawling, Gothic house, her safe, sheltered life is
blown apart. Inside, below a stained glass window where moonlight shines no
matter the time of day, sits The Book of Kindly Deaths.

In defiance of her controlling mother, who has always
forbidden her to read anything strange or imaginary, Eliza takes the book. As
night sets in, Eliza reads one haunting story after another. And the further
she journeys inside the book, the more the boundaries between our world and a
shadowy land of monsters and forbidden places begin to blur.

When the strange, crooked man from the book arrives on the
doorstep claiming to be a rare book collector and demanding entry into the
house, Eliza’s world is turned upside down. To escape him she must dive all the
way into the spine-tingling world of The
Book of Kindly Deaths to save her grandfather—and write an end to the
nightmare she's caught inside.

Monday, November 25, 2013

First, the pre-orders for the book have been great!I'm so thrilled... and thank you to everyone
who has already ordered a copy!! Seriously, pre-orders are a HUGE help to
authors. It makes us stand out to vendors and suppliers...so if you still plan
on getting a copy, please feel free to order it from whoever your favorite
vendor is.

Less fortunately, we had to change printers to meet the
demands for THE KELPIE, so the official release date had to be pushed back
until December 17. Which, considering I've long had the release party set for
December 7th and other events happening before the 17th, it could have been a
disaster.

But because Kate Kaynak and SHP are awesome, I'm getting a
very limited early run that I'm able to use for the release party, all local
events pre-December 17, and to supply the local
vendors who I promised stuff to for the original release.Also, for those of you who were absolutely
depending on the book pre-December 17, let me know and I'll do my best to set
aside one of these limited print run books for you.

Most importantly, though, THANK YOU again, to everyone
who has been supporting me through getting my very first novel out there and
around!

She has what every girl wants: a man who loves her, a beautiful
home, and wealth beyond imagining. She rescued her brother from the
Peacekeepers, destroyed the Iron Queen, and doesn’t have to go to her boring
job any more.

And yet… Sara still doesn’t know if her father is alive or dead.
Her mother hides in the garden, brooding about her missing husband. Her sister,
the Inheritor of Metal, is scared of her own shadow, and her brother spends his
days fighting and gambling. To add to Sara’s misery, the new queen (gold, of
course) is more than a bit crazy, she misses her life in the Mundane world,
and, worst of all, Micah wants to have children. A lot of them.

As Sara wavers between happiness and homesickness, a conspiracy
emerges against the Raven clan, implicating them in a plot to dethrone the Gold
Queen. How can Sara prove her family’s innocence, and become the consort Micah
needs her to be, without losing herself in the process?

Jennifer Allis Provost is a native New Englander who lives in a sprawling
colonial along with her beautiful and precocious twins, a dog, two birds, three
cats, and a wonderful husband who never forgets to buy ice cream. As a child,
she read anything and everything she could get her hands on, including a set of
encyclopedias, but fantasy was always her favorite. She spends her days
drinking vast amounts of coffee, arguing with her computer, and avoiding any
and all domestic behavior.

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

While working at Spencer
Hill Press, I've gotten to meet and make friends with many authors...even
those who I don't edit or work with.This year, at Book Expo America, I got to room with the fabulous Sherry D. Ficklin. (Okay, I got to
room with the fabulous Sherry, Marie
Romero, and Michelle Picket...
but today we're talking about Sherry...)In any case, we hit it off and ended up hanging out even more at New
York Comic Con.

And today is the book birthday of EXTRACTED: THE LOST
IMPERIALS BOOK 1

The book she co-edited with Tyler Jolley.

So, Happy Book Birthday to Sherry & Tyler!

Welcome to the war. The Tesla
Institute is a premier academy that trains young time travelers called Rifters.
Created by Nicola Tesla, the Institute seeks special individuals who can help
preserve the time stream against those who try to alter it. The Hollows is a
rogue band of Rifters who tear through time with little care for the
consequences. Armed with their own group of lost teens--their only desire to
find Tesla and put an end to his corruption of the time stream. Torn between
them are Lex and Ember, two Rifters with no memories of their life before
joining the time war. When Lex's girlfriend dies during a mission, the only way
he can save her is to retrieve the Dox, a piece of tech which allows Rifters to
re-enter their own timeline without collapsing the time stream. But the Dox is
hidden deep within the Tesla Institute, which means Lex must go into the enemy
camp. It's there he meets Ember, and the past that was stolen from them both
comes flooding back. Now armed with the truth of who they are, Lex and Ember
must work together to save the future before the battle for time destroys them
both again.

Elizabeth Black is a Broad I've
met more recently than the other women on this tour, but I'm so glad to know
her now. And I am such a sucker for haunted house stories! I sooo want to go
here!

Happy Halloween!!

I Stayed At A Haunted Bed And Breakfast.
Twice.

By Elizabeth Black

Yup, I was foolish enough to stay at a haunted
bed and breakfast - twice. This B&B dates back to the Revolutionary War,
and it sits on a river. I had heard about it from one of my ex's friends, and
after much planning I finally stayed there when I was in town for a theater
stage crew convention.

The story behind the haunting is as follows:

British soldiers came up the river and
proceeded to set the small town on fire, destroying most of it. Soldiers threw
torches on the porch of this B&B, which was originally a brothel. The
proprietress swept the torches off the porch with her broom. She made a deal
with the soldiers. She would house them, feed them, and allow them to use her
services as long as they didn't burn the place down. They agreed, and this
B&B was allowed to stand whilst homes around it burned to the ground.The haunting involves the ghost of the
proprietress wandering the halls in the dead of night, checking on her
clientele and the women to make sure everyone was comfortable. There have been
other sightings as well. The B&B itself is absolutely beautiful, decorated
in Victorian splendor. It includes a lovely bar and discounted dinners every
Friday night. The rooms are beautiful, spacious, and very homey in that
Victorian style I liked very much.

The first time I stayed it was off-season in
mid-winter. I was in a room overlooking the river. What a view! I enjoyed a
delicious meal and the company of a man I met in the bar. He came to the
B&B several times per month to enjoy dinner when in town on business. No, I
did not take him to bed, although he was very handsome. We ate dinner together.
That night I slept well until about 3 am when I heard a party going on in the
room next to me. There was a lot of noise. I managed to go back to sleep. At
about 4:30 am I heard heavy footsteps walking up and down the hallway. I
immediately thought of the ghost of the proprietress stalking the halls
checking on everyone and went back to sleep. I wondered whys she wore combat
boots, since her footsteps were very loud and heavy. I felt very safe, secure,
and comfortable. Not the least bit scared.

The next day, when I went down for breakfast,
I told the clerk about the party and the footsteps. She told me I couldn't have
heard anything because I had been alone in the building all night. Yeeeahhh!!!!! The party! The footsteps!
None of it could have happened!!!

Of course, I had to return. J

The second time I stayed I was with my current
husband. While we slept, someone turned on the overhead light in the middle of
the night. I was a very light sleeper and I snapped awake the moment the light
turned on. My husband snored away next to me. I was far too tired to get up and
turn off the light, so I went back to sleep. When I woke up shortly before
dawn, the light was off. I asked my husband later about the light and he said
he had turned it off before going to bed. He didn't get up during the night at
all.

So who turned on the light? And who later
turned it off?

I heard those footsteps in the hallway again,
and felt as safe as I did the first time.No party this time, though. At least this time there were other guests
in the place. I wasn't alone in the building again.

So there you have it. I had my own ghostly experiences.
Granted, I think there were perfectly natural explanations for what I heard.
The kitchen was downstairs right off my room and noise from clean-up could have
carried up the stairs. I could have mistaken those noises for a party. It's
also likely my husband simply forgot he didn't turn off the overhead light. But
I like to think I had ghostly experiences both times I stayed.

Here's where to find me on the web. Friend me on Facebook,
follow me on Twitter, and check out my books! I've included my Amazon author
pages for both of my pen names, so whether you're into sexy or spooky, I have
stories for you!

I'm honored to have
our own Hostess with the Mostest who put this blog together, LC Hu, for today's post! :) And I'm also
extremely pleased with this article on vampires because for a long time, I
shared her disdain of these particular monsters. I love how she refound the
spark of horror!

Happy Halloween!!

Revamping the Vampire, by LC Hu

Happy almost-Halloween, everyone!

A quick shout out to Trisha for hosting me!It's great to be here.

Today, I want to talk about revisiting a classic Halloween
monster--the vampire--twice, and what it means to me to reimagine a subject.

We've all heard the old adage "There's nothing new
under the sun."(Or the stars, in a
vampire's case.) And it's true--it's hard , if not impossible, to come up with
something completely new; even if you think of something that's pretty
original, odds are good that someone else has thought of it too.There's a lot of people pondering a lot of
subjects out there.

So for me breathing fresh life into something old is more
about adding a personal touch.Finding
what unsettles me, or interests me, and adding that little bit to the existing
monster.And hitting a common note is
just fine--wanted, perhaps, because it will help my audience connect.

In recent work I've revisited the vampire twice.I find this a little funny--since outgrowing
my Anne Rice and Poppy Z Brite phase, I've carried around a little bit of hipsteresque
disdain for the befanged blood drinker.But for the Re-Vamp project, we were doing a tour of all the old,
classic, monsters, so I was obligated to revisit the subject.And for Midnight Carnival shared world
project, part of why I tackled a vampire was precisely my disdain; it seemed
like a personal challenge, to make this overdone monster interesting to me
again.

Re-Vamp was all about trying to bring the classic into the
current, to be both nostalgic and contemporary at once, so for the vampire in
my short story "Lump," I read a lot about the origins of the
vampire.I decided to go with the
elements that disturbed me: the corpse-like pallor, the distended/bloated
belly, elements that hearkened back to people being frightened of decomposing corpses.Decay and rot are unsettling to a lot of
people.For the contemporary angle, I
used situation and location--by the side of the highway, the dark woods, the
quandary of helping someone (or something) injured by the side of the road, or
leaving it out of fear.

Being a shared, established world, The Midnight Carnival had
established certain rules for vampires already, so I only had so much room to
work with: they could be wounded or killed by holy water, fire, sunlight,
silver; they were made, not born; they live on blood; they are stronger and
faster than humans, and able to heal quickly. So it became the little things
about my individual vampire, Carver, that I played with to make him interesting
to me.I tried to imagine how a vampire
like that might blend into the human world best, become the wolf in sheep's
clothing as best as possible.What
biological alterations the transformation would cause, and what neurochemical
or other personality-influencing changes.

His teeth, for example: they are all sharp, like a dog or
cat's teeth, even the molars.The
canines are longer, the front teeth more flattened/bladelike, but they are not
the two puncturing canines of the classic movie vampire.They also retract.The human set and the vampire set are interchangeable,
sliding back into the gums, one set replacing the other.Or his breathing--Carver breathes so he can
speak, because I liked the physicality of it, the little obedience to the real
world, that you must have air in your lungs and expend it to speak.It's also good camouflage, when you're
pretending to be human.

And I mentioned mental changes too--it's not clear, in the
MC world, if it's a demonic soul outsting a human one to cause the vampiric
change, or a virus, or something else, so I went with it being more physical,
including alterations to the brain and brain chemistry.Once upon a time Carver was a very good,
upstanding man, a detective with a beloved wife and two beloved daughters, and
I started thinking about what kind of a vampire a man like that would become,
if you took away his regret and a large part of his empathy and handed him a
ravenous, unending appetite for blood.

…I could go on all day.Suffice to say, I interested myself in this old, reliable monster again,
and had good fun with it too.In the
end, I think that's all it takes to breathe a little new life into the
old--have fun with it, go crazy, let yourself break rules or obey them, just
learn to enjoy the monster--or whatever subject matter you're revisiting--again.

Justine Graykin's second post in this tour
tickles me to no end. I've been a fan of her Archimedes Nesselrode since she started reading excerpts from it
at Rapid Fire Readings years ago. It was an audio book first, and I just don't
do audio books. So, when she finally, finally, finally had a huggable book
published, I did, indeed, drive all the way up to her release party in New
Hampshire so I could immediately hug my own copy. Squee!

Happy Halloween!!

An Excerpt
from Archimedes Nesselrode by Justine
Graykin

Archimedes Nesselrode, my newly-released novel from
Double Dragon, is mostly gentle and whimsical, a tale of an artist with strange
and wonderful creative powers.But these
powers also have a dark and frightful side, one which even the artist himself
fears.

In
honor of the this shiversome season, I offer to the readers of my dear friend
Trisha’s blog an excerpt from the book in keeping with that spirit of darkness.

We
join the artist and his devoted housekeeper attempting to escape from the
vengeful anger of Zarah Trebbiano, the operatic diva whose advances Mr.
Nesselrode has rejected.

“Oh, yes, get into the car,
Michel!” the singer mocked.“Do as your
woman servant says!Spineless worm!That is all you are!Gutless and spineless!”

“That will be enough!” Ms. Mare
snapped in an imperiously commanding tone that any school mistress would have
envied.“You will leave immediately and
do not dare attempt to contact Mr.
Nesselrode again in any way!”

“You are a crude, ill-bred woman
who ought to be ashamed of herself, but is too arrogant to realize it!Now, good night to you!”Ms. Mare turned on her heel to go.Her employer had still not moved.

“Ill-bred?” the singer
cried.“This from an illegitimate brat
of the serving class! Oh, yes, I know
who you are!You’re the housekeeper,
aren’t you?Do you think to improve your
position by coddling your master?A bit
of advice to you--don’t attempt to bed him!He is a passionless, impotent fish!”

“How dare you?” Ms. Mare cried in
outrage.

“Can’t you say anything,
Michel?No, you pathetic, sniveling
poseur!I should never have wasted my
time with you!You are not a man at all!”

“That will be enough!” Ms. Mare
commanded, uncomfortably aware that they were beginning to attract a crowd.“Mr. Nesselrode, get into the car.We are leaving!”

“Go on, Michel!Run with your tail between your legs!That’s all you’ve got down there!Go home with your faithful dog!Perhaps you can reward her with a few
limp-wristed caresses!Or do you prefer
little boys?”

“Zarah, shut up!”

The transformation of Archimedes
Nesselrode from rabbit to wild-eyed fury was sudden and astonishing.He spun around to face her and his voice rose
into a screech.“Shut up!Shut up!Shut up!”

Madam Trebbiano was shocked
speechless, taking a step away from him.Ms. Mare was frozen, her mouth open.She had seen him annoyed, fretful, peevish and irritated.She had never seen this.His eyes blazed with madness, but not the
gentle, harmless madness she was accustomed to.His face was twisted horribly and malignantly.The winged snake flew up into the air with
alarm and darted over to Ms. Mare, coiling about her legs and cringing, afraid
of her own master.

“You summon great passion in me,
Zarah!Oh, yes!You inspire me with wild emotion!”He laughed, but it was a fearful, maniacal
sound.“You are fascinated by my magic,
eh?I’ll give you a demonstration!See what I create in your honor!”He held out his hands.To Ms. Mare’s horror they were dripping with
scorpions.If there was any creature
which inspired greater loathing in her than spiders, it was scorpions.

“Get away from me!” she cried,
backing away.But she found her retreat
blocked.They were no longer standing on
a city sidewalk.Archimedes Nesselrode
had conjured a chamber of horrors.

The stone walls that enclosed
them slanted at bizarre angles and intersected with unbearable asymmetry.The seams where the stone blocks met were
cracked and seeping with fungoid slime.From the slime bubbled shapeless things which crawled and dripped to the
crazily tilting floor.The ceiling was
thickly hung with sticky webs which seethed with black legs and bloated bodies.

“Gifts for you, Zarah!” he
shrieked, his voice cracked and shaking, “From the bottom of my heart!”He threw the scorpions at her, and began to
laugh hideously.He became swathed in
robes of black and scarlet, and from beneath the folds of the robe erupted
monstrosities, deformed and hideous.Writhing hunks of severed flesh, embedded with eyes, oozing like open
wounds, they flopped and crawled around him.Zarah Trebbiano screamed and clawed helplessly at the venomous creatures
that clung to her, stinging her repeatedly.

Stunned with horror, Vivian Mare
stared, unable to believe that her timid, sweet employer could have so suddenly
mutated into this terrible monster.It
took an act of strongest will power to break the paralyzing spell.

“Snake, for pity’s sake, let go
of me!”

My
thanks to Trisha Wooldridge for her gracious hospitality.Archimedes
Nesselrode is

available as a paperback through Amazon and as an ebook
though most major distributors.You may
learn more about this and my humble self on my website, at justinegraykin.com

About the
Author:

Justine Graykin is a writer and free-lance
philosopher sustained by her deep, abiding faith in Science, Humanity and the
belief that humor is the best anti-gravity device. Author of Archimedes Nesselrode,
a book written for adults who are weary of adult books, she is producer of the
BroadPod podcast.She lives, writes and
putters around her home in rural New Hampshire, occasionally disappearing into
the White Mountains with a backpack.

I'm thrilled my first
post is from Vonnie Winslow Crist,
a woman after my own heart when it comes to faery tales and folklore. I just
love her post here!

Happy Halloween!!

Ogerhunches and other Goblins by Vonnie Winslow Crist

Goblins are dark Faeryfolk often associated with Halloween.
They appear in fantasy literature and film from J.R.R. Tolkien's Hobbit
and Lord of the Rings to J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter to scary
nursery rhymes like Little Orphan Annie by James Whitcomb Riley. And
there are so many terrifying varieties of goblins that a Red-cap, Bogy,
Padfoot, Barguest, Tankerabogus, Grindee, or Ogerhunch could be hiding under
your stairs this very minute!

Not all goblins are as fearsome as Red-caps who wear hats
died crimson in the blood of their victims. Nor as frightening as a Bogy who is
known to follow people around calling out, “I want my bones.” Nor as unnerving
as a Padfoot who walks behind an unsuspecting person, then runs up to his side
and roars. Nor as scary as a Barguest with its horns, teeth, claws, and fiery
eyes. Nor as dreadful as a Tankerabogus who comes and carries naughty children
away to its pit-hole. Some goblins are actually more terrifying!

When I wanted to add goblins to my Young Adult fantasy
adventure novel, The Enchanted Skean, I had to decide what my goblins
would be called and what they'd look like. Plus, I wanted to give them
characteristics which would make them repulsive and fascinating at the same
time.

The first type of goblin I created are Grindees. They're
smallish nocturnal goblins that travel in swarms of 20

to 30 individuals.
Grindees chase down travelers, devour both animals and humans, then steal
whatever valuables they possessed. They have glowing orange eyes, mottled skin,
elongated fingers, multiple horns, and wide mouths filled with razor-sharp
teeth. Able to speak in a hissing, lispy manner, Grindees are happy to let a
person know just how much they despise humans – just before they bite them.

When it came to creating the second type of goblin for The
Enchanted Skean, I decided to find an archaic word for a frightening
creature. One of the fabulous words I found in Jeffery Kacirk's The Word
Museum was Ogerhunch. According to Kacirk an Ogerhunch is
“Any frightful or loathsome creature, especially a bat.” Well, I'm a fan of
bats, so I decided to make my Ogerhunches goblins that looked like forest
debris and stumps. A horde of Hunches will sneak up unnoticed, knock their
victims to the ground with their branch-like limbs, then suck their juices out
with their rootlets. Luckily for the protagonist in my novel, Ogerhunches
aren't especially smart and they're afraid of fire.

In the sequel to The Enchanted Skean, Grindee and
Ogerhunches are sure to appear. The trick will be to add an even more devious
goblin to the mix.

So this Halloween when your doorbell rings and you open your
door to trick-or-treaters, keep your eyes peeled for goblins. It's easy to
separate them from the neighborhood kids – their ugly faces aren't masks and
they don't come off with make-up remover. And remember “you better mind your
parents and your teachers fond and dear, and cherish them that loves ya, and
dry the orphans tears and help the poor and needy ones that cluster all about,
or the goblins will get ya if ya don't watch out!”

About the guest writer: Vonnie Winslow Crist is author of a
YA fantasy novel, The Enchanted Skean, 2 speculative story collections, The
Greener Forest and Owl Light, and other books. A firm believer that
the world around us is filled with mystery, miracles, and magic, Vonnie
celebrates the power of myth in her writing.

Monday, October 7, 2013

A few years ago, at
the Broad Universe / Spencer Hill Press table at the very first Anthocon, this sweet young woman wandered over.
There was chemistry between the bunch of us right away and the group of us
table folk absconded with the lovely Kendra
L. Saunders for dinner, got her to join Broad Universe, and all promptly
bought copies of her first novel, Inanimate
Objects, which is a beautiful story of art and immortality in the vein
(there's a pun there...) of The Great
Gatsby. Trust me, you'll love it!

Then she wrote an
entirely different styled book, Death and
Mr. Right, which I (and the rest of my friends) also fell in love
with.For entirely different reasons.In the humorous style of Douglas Adams and
Terry Pratchett, Death and Mr. Right
is a romp through Boston and beyond with the diva-like Death (recently-made-former
agent of nightmares) as he tries to get back his job, the list of the names of
the damned that he lost (oops!), and above all, not fall in love.

As you might imagine,
things aren't going so well...

Kendra is an awesome
person, and she is kindly sharing her awesomeness on my blog with an
interview!!Why? Because Death and Mr. Right is now available for
you to love and laugh milk out your nose
over, too!

Thanks for stopping
by, Kendra!

Oh, thank you so much for having me! And I just wanted
to say- thank you so much for The Great Gatsby mention. That's one of my
favorite books.

What kind of research
went into writing Death and Mr. Right?
What is your favorite research story? What cool facts and findings didn’t make
it into the book, but you loved discovering?

While writing Death and Mr. Right, my friend Megan took me
to Boston for a full day of exploration and research! We wandered Newbury
Street and some of the popular spots, then down by the swan boats, which I
guess a lot of people think are really pretty. I found them to be extremely
depressing, haha. The most beautiful spot in Boston is the Church of Science,
across the street from the Prudential Center. We found it by accident, because
it started raining and we made a dash for cover... the reflecting pool in front
of the Church of Science is just breathtaking, though, even in the rain. You feel
like you've teleported to Italy or something. If Death and Mr. Right becomes a
huge cult hit, I want to offer tours of the major locations in the book, and
that would be the most important one. I took a lot of pictures of it, which can
be found on my facebook page!

Also, during my research, I found
out that Pandora's "Box" was actually a jar! That was a cool fact
that I had no idea about previously.

You also have a
passion for fashion, which definitely seems to find its way into your
work. As the person who is constantly getting notes from her critique
group that she adds too much horsey stuff--but generally isn't into fashion at
all--I'm curious how you are able to let in just enough of your passion into
your writing without overwhelming--and while making it interesting for those of
us who normally don't think about fashion? :)

The newest book, The Unlove Spell, has maybe the most of it,
because Marling lives in New York City, her friend Kyran is a fashion label
obsessed metrosexual and Viktor Arson is a total babe, so we usually hear about
what he's wearing. In one part, Kyran says something about standing outside of
an Alexander McQueen store and feeling too afraid to walk inside, lest he burst
into flames of unworthiness. So there was lots of designer label talk in that
one.

I have had the extraordinary privilege to meet a lot of designers that I really
admire and have conversations with them in interviews or just while hanging
out, and have learned so much. For my freelance work, I talk a lot about
fashion (in interviews and articles) and I've been an InStyle subscriber for
ten years! So it's very possible that my projects in the future will have more
and more of a fashion theme, but generally I try to describe in humorous ways,
usually, or with a very light hand. That being said, I recently wrote a short
story inspired by one of Zac Posen's photos on instagram, about a designer, and
I've been inspired for several pieces by fashion, models, and designers. Music
and fashion are my greatest inspirations!

What is your favorite
part of being a writer? Of the whole writing and publishing
process? What do you think has been your greatest lesson in the journey
thus far?

Definitely for me, writing is a way of processing things
that have happened to me. Maybe someone was really cruel and I couldn't react
at the time (I'm a slow reactor and very bad at confrontation), so I process it
in fiction. Maybe I met a stranger who was intriguing but disappeared from the
fabric of my life... I can bring them to life in fiction. Maybe someone is
dancing around the edges of my life... I can get to know them through fiction.
Maybe there's a place I've always wanted to visit (England, Austria, etc)...
fiction is a transportation device. And if I miss a place, a person, a feeling,
I can resurrect it in writing. Truly, writing is the best and cheapest way to
live a thousand lives.

Also, getting to travel in the
name of research and promotion is great. I've had wanderlust all my life and
this is the perfect job to allow for that.

What does your
writing space look like? What do you need to have around you while writing or
editing?

My writing space changes from day
to day but my favorite place to write is at the Concord, NH Starbucks. I've
written most of THREE novels there (and even dedicated Death and Mr. Right to
them!) I like to have a latte (no sugar) and a cup of water at the table with
me. My doctor made me promise to cut back on caffeine, but the smell of
espresso is just magical! I have to have headphones so I can retreat into my
mental writing cave. Spotify has become my best friend... it's an online music
database that allows you to listen to whole albums or playlists that you
create, for free. It's great because the artists don't lose money and you don't
have to pay to listen to new albums. I have a playlist for every major project
I'm working on, as well as a "soothing" one, a "love" one,
a "girl power" one and lots of others! Plus with spotify, you can
receive suggestions from other spotify users. Fabio Costa (Project Runway
contestant and co-owner of NotEqual) is one of my favorite people to get
suggestions from. He has great taste in music and we can nerd out over indie
albums together. Feel free to find my playlists and check them out, and be sure
to check his out too!

If I'm home, I like to sit in my
room surrounded by my stuffed animals. Because I'm a grown up.

What is one thing
that most people don't realize about you?

Well, most people don't realize I
have an embarrassingly extensive knowledge of Sting's discography. Not even a
joke! I have all of his albums up until the lute one, and even some singles.
And I have "Soul Cages" on vinyl, thanks to my friend Isaac. I've
also seen a couple of his movies- The Bride (which I told the Nostalgia Critic
he should review) and Brimstone and Treacle. And yes, I own his books too. He's
been a major creative influence on my writing and life. The lyrics from
"Soul Cages" are just surreal masterpieces to me. He's a master
storyteller.

Also, Andrew Bird wore the scarf I
made for him in a music video with Margaret Cho. Look it up! So cool!

What has been your
favorite adventure during your writing career?

Oh, there have been so many of them! But my greatest was
definitely going to New York City in May of this year for BEA, staying at the
hip Jane Hotel with my sister, getting dressed up in my gorgeous Dmitry
Sholokhov dress and high heels, attending a fancy breakfast as a guest author,
taking a taxi to the Javit's Center, signing review copies of Death and Mr.
Right to tons of strangers and familiar faces alike, and Dmitry joining me at
the event as my guest. It was amazing! We chatted and caught up a little after
he arrived and I met his lovely friend Anastasiya, and then we posed behind the
Spencer Hill table and suddenly there was a whole row of people standing in
front of us with cameras. I've never seen so many cameras in my life! It was a
surreal experience. Even Dmitry commented that it was a lot of camera flashes.
I felt like a princess or something! Later that evening, my sister and three of
my best girlfriends got together with me back at the Jane Hotel for drinks and
conversation, and then my dear friend Megan and I took a late-night walk along
the waterfront. To have so many wonderful people with me for that event was a
beautiful experience. And Dmitry has been such an inspiration for me, both as
an artist with a lot of ambition and big dreams and good sense of humor, and
also because he was the muse for Viktor Arson in "The Unlove Spell."
It was the most magical day of my life! (If you don't know about his work, you
should look him up on twitter and instagram, both of which are @dmitrysholokhov
)

Now that we have had a taste of your awesomeness, what are the deets
about your book so we can all buy it? (ISBN, where to buy it, etc.)

Death and Mr. Right drops October 1st. It will be for
sale in most Barnes & Noble stores, on amazon and worldwide at bookdepository.com. There are many things you can do to
make this funky little book into an indie success. You can call or visit your
local bookstore and ask them to order a copy of the book, you can tweet me (
@kendrybird ) with the hashtag #deathandmrright , you can take a picture of
yourself with the book and tweet it or instagram it with the #deathandmrright
tag... I'm going to feature the pictures on my site, along with a link of your
choice, if you'd like. So hit me up!

You've got a very active life in social media, and you promote your
work in a lot of untraditional ways. What advice can you offer other
authors who are looking to help promote their books and are trying to get
online more?

Choose two social media platforms that you really like
and concentrate on those. Some people try to do it all- facebook, twitter,
instagram, blog, pinterest, tumblr, whatever... it gets to be a burden,
especially if you're new to it. I suggest you use two that you really like, and
use one more for personal contacts and one more for 'fans.' Facebook is great
for personal contacts and twitter is great for fans. With facebook, you have
more of a human connection, but you also have the gatekeeper of adding people
as your 'friend.' With twitter, you speak and anyone in the world can listen.
Post about what makes your life unique. Fans and followers want to see things
they can't see in their own lives, like places you've traveled, cool people
you've met or whatever else. Also, don't be afraid to tweet people you admire.
Everyone is so connected now, and there's comfort in that, even for someone 'on
top.' I've interacted with Neil Gaiman, Jonathan Ross, Tom Hiddleston and many
other of my personal heroes on twitter. So don't be afraid to try talking to
one of your heroes!

Speaking of your active online life, how can fans (un-creeper-like)
stalk you to find out what you're up to and what else they can possibly give
you money for? :)

I LOVE to hear from everyone! My twitter handle is
@kendrybird and I'm on instagram @kendralsaunders and update my website
regularly www.kendralsaunders.com In addition, the radio interviews I do go up
on my youtube channel after they air. I've interviewed Dmitry Sholokhov,
Michelle Lesniak Franklin, Fabio Costa, Melissa Fleis, Miranda Levy.. you can
hear those on my youtube channel! http://www.youtube.com/KendraLSaunders I also
upload video journals there from my travels. Recent ones include my trip to NYC
for Death and Mr. Right's signing at BEA, and my adventures at NYFW!

What are you working
on now, and what other projects can we look for from you in the near future?

I've recently finished writing The Unlove Spell, which is
probably my favorite thing I've ever written. It's about a young witch named
Marling, who lives in New York City and isn't very good at magic. She tries to
put an unlove spell on her former lover, sexy Russian writer Viktor Arson, to
keep him from falling in love with anyone else, but she accidentally puts it on
herself instead. The story begins five years later, when their paths cross
again and she finds out Viktor's family are actually fae royalty. The fae and
witches have a long, ugly history, and Marling has to decide... does she really
love him, or is that just the unlove spell she placed on herself?

It's a comedy and it's fun and it's set in New York City. It's currently with
my very favorite agent, so my fingers are crossed!

I'm also mostly finished with a poetry and short story collection about these
two people who are never quite right for each other, but they keep crossing
paths in different lives and realities. It's really melancholy and I'm excited
about the idea of sharing it with the world!

Once again, thank you
so much for stopping by my blog, Kendra!It's always a blast to hang out with you!

Thank you so much, Trish! You're amazing, and I have so much
respect and love for you!

Sunday, August 25, 2013

For the good part of about two years, now, my friend and
fellow Dragon*Writer, Anthony Francis and
I have been working on the DOORWAYS TO EXTRA TIME anthology--and it finally
comes out this Tuesday!!

I am so seriously proud of this baby...there was a lot of
beauty and a lot of heartache (some amazing, amazing, amazing stories got sent
to us--and we couldn't even fit them all!!) and a lot of time (heh!) and a lot
of sweat and blood into this anthology.I hope you love it as much as we do!

We're planning a bunch of promotional thingama-gigs over the
next month or so, so stay tuned. :)If
you happen to be going to DragonCon
this year, though, check out our release party at Ray's
in the City!Consider this your
invitation!

And just in case you needed more incentive than an awesome
anthology, free food, and cool people... well, we're also raffling off this
AWESOME stained glass piece from Stained Glass Creations
and Beyond!

Now, onto the coolness of this anthology.Here's the back copy:

Everyone wishes they could get an extra hour in the day.

But what if you could?

What if you had a special device that gave you an extra day
every week? You could use it to get ahead at work…unless your boss had it too.

What if you knew a spell that gave you an extra hour every
day? You could use it to correct a mistake…or make a new one.

What if you could just stop time? You could accomplish a
myriad of wonders…if you only knew how to get time started again.

Time loops and time travel, time apps and time outs, time
machines, time merchants, and more can be found passing through these doorways
into worlds where time can be spent like money…or where extra time can only be
bought at a terrible price.